Of The World There Is Nothing More
by phirephox666
Summary: Niko learned very early on in his life how to identify people by their scent and the feel of their touch. It was something instinctive, as ingrained in him as his speed and the ability to soak up knowledge like a sponge. Complete.


**Title: **Of the World There is Nothing More

**Author: **PhirePhox666

**Fandom:** Cal Leandros

**Pairing/Characters:** Cal, Niko, Promise, Ishiah, Robin, Sophia, Auphe, Niko's father(O.C.)

**Rating: **PG-13

**Warnings:** Erm, language maybe?

**Summary: **Niko learned very early on in his life how to identify people by their scent and the feel of their touch. It was something instinctive, as ingrained in him as his speed and the ability to soak up knowledge like a sponge

**Disclaimer: **Sadly I do not own. I wish I did because that would make me the creators of such a wonderful world and characters.

**Word Count:** 1,438

**Dedication: **Inspired by someone in the Ouran High School Host Club fandom. Can't rememer who though

**Prompt:** Scent

**Excerpt:**Niko learned very early on in his life how to identify people by their scent and the feel of their touch. It was something instinctive, as ingrained in him as his speed and the ability to soak up knowledge like a sponge.

**A/N:** I am posting this on my birthday! Woot. Happy birthday to me. Yeesh, been working on this for a while. Hope it doesn't come out rushed at the end, I couldn't figure out how I wanted to end it. Just a bit of a ramble into Niko's thoughts. I dunno. Sorta random I guess. Insipired by someone in a totally different fandom, who did something similar. Review if you wish. Flame if you wish. Still never been flamed. Hope you enjoy.

_Of The World There is Nothing More_

Niko learned very early on in his life how to identify people by their scent and the feel of their touch. It was something instinctive, as ingrained in him as his speed and the ability to soak up knowledge like a sponge. Although he did not have Cal's nose it was also something that came in handy. It was also something that made him remember.

Sophia smelled of alcohol and campfire smoke and anger. He thought that even years after she had left her Rom brothers and sisters that she stilled smelled of their campfires, a scent so ingrained in her life that it still lingered on her skin. The smell of alcohol tried to overpower that and the scent of anger was even stronger still. Yet Niko could always smell that lingering campfire smoke smell.

Sophia's touches were like the meeting of a belt and tender skin. Sharp and burning and fleeting. He'd had the belt taken to him twice before he learned how to avoid that particular punishment and the feeling of it was imprinted in his mind forever. Every stroke of the belt against his skin had been fleeting and sharp. Every stroke had left it's mark of burning skin. Sophia's touches were like that as few of them as he got. They were always like that.

Niko can not remember his father that well for his father visited only twice after his birth. Sophia says as he grows older that she does not remember who she slept with that had fathered him, but he remembers. Maybe Sophia only remembers him as the Rom who came around a few extra times but Niko remembers. Because his father had recognized him, something about the hair and the shape of the eyes and the timing, and he had told Niko.

Niko's father had the scent of incense and nylon and sweat. Sharp and pervasive and strangely real. For all Niko was three years old it was a scent he would never forget. The smell of someone who worked. His father's touch was different, it was tree-bark. Rough and yet somehow gentle. Fleeting and unsure, gone too soon to feel real. The same as his father was, gone without a trace from his world, too fleeting to be real. Sometimes Niko thought he'd dreamed the whole thing.

The Auphe smelled of acid and tomb dirt and decay. They smelled as ancient as time but not in the pleasant way of old books. In the awful way of a species that just would not die, like cockroaches. Their touch was like disease, he'd not felt it often but even the few times he had felt it were more than enough. Their touch felt not like death, but like creeping, lurking disease that made your skin crawl and bleed. That was worse than death because it lingered and stole any semblance of peace. Like the Auphe themselves, Niko supposed.

Ishiah smelled of wind swept plains and heather, of snow and the faint, lingering smell of alcohol. The alcohol was of course from working at The Ninth Circle so often. The smell lingered on him for a very long time. The smell of snow, sharp and fresh, mingled with the smell of wind swept plains, and of heather. It reminded Niko of high mountains and windy plains and heather filled hills. It reminded him of places that birds soared free and content in the knowledge that they could go anywhere, do anything. A heady scent and yet somehow subdued and muted.

His touches were snow and feathers. Surprisingly cold in temperature as if the peri had a lower body temperature than humans and soft as the brush of feathers against skin. Smooth and delicate and tough. It was a touch that Niko had not been often on the receiving end of but it was a touch that stuck with him. For it to reminds him of high mountains, as inexplicable as that is, and he finds the reminder almost soothing.

Robin smelled of silk and ancient forests, of expensive wine and steel. He smells, in his own way, as ancient as the Auphe do. It is hardly the same though, for Robin reminds Niko more of a well taken care of, often read book than of something that lived to not die. He smells of silk and decadence and wine, things that he has spoiled himself in so long that they linger there on his skin. A taunt for all the world to see. Underneath all that he smells of steel, of danger, of trouble. He can protect himself and can do so oh so easily.

Robin's touch is the touch of a lion. He is a predator and when his claws are sheathed the touch is soft and gentle and playful. If perhaps a little more powerful than he realizes. Perhaps the touch of a flirtatious lion. When his claws are out it is very much obvious how dangerous he is, for then his touch is sharp and dangerous and tears at you, even if you are his ally. There is a hunger there and a loneliness that is even deeper. The touch of a lion.

Promise smells of gold and rust, of cobblestones and creek water. He's not sure about that last, it seems like such an odd thing, but it's there, underneath everything else, it's there. The smell of gold and silver and jewels is always first, a reminder of all she's worked for and all she now has, the smell of cobblestones is an interesting dichotomy to that reminder. It is it's own revelation, the smell of lesser times, older times. Along with that there is the smell of rust, the faint not-quite smell. Not quite iron, not quite blood, the reminder of what she is in every breath he takes near her.

Promise's touches are hot candle wax. Warm and smooth and soft as silk. Yet fleeting and with the subtle hint of danger beneath it, the hint of playing with fire. Almost too hot to touch, yet not quite, and it is something you take comfort in because this is something that is faintly dangerous. Something that could harm you and yet no harm comes to you. The fire does not touch you.

Cal's scent is a strange juxtaposition of smells that come together to form something else entirely. Cal smells of honey and smoke, of shadows and gunpowder, of oil and leather and Niko's soap. Gunpowder from his gun, a smell that stained his hands and his sleeves. Beneath that the smells of gun oil and Niko's soap. The smell of oil was faint, it was Niko who so often cleaned Cal's toys. They were explosive toys perhaps, but still toys. With that was Niko's soap, organic oatmeal soap that Cal used purely because it was what they had in the house and he didn't care either way. A smell that was scrubbed into his skin. Cool and sharp was the leather, ingrained in to Cal's skin after so long wearing the same type of cheap leather jacket for years, and over that, mixing with it, changing it, was the hint of shadows. The hint of Auphe that teased at the supernatural senses, whispering to others the secrets of Cal's genetics. It grew stronger every time Cal gated, a warning, a caution. Honey and smoke, sweet and strong and strange. Overlaying everything else, subtler than the rest was the smell of honey and smoke. A scent they shared Niko had been told once, by a one-eyed werewolf. Honey and smoke, the connection of their genetics.

Cal's touches are river water. In calm times, they are slow and smooth and gentle. Warm touches with meaning and affection. Soothing to Niko, who has had less positive physical contact in his life than is healthy. They are salvation and family and comfort. In hectic times, crazy times, times of anger and pain, they are rushed. Too quick to convey anything other than the barest of surface emotions. Panic, anger, pain all jumbled and swirling in a mass, like the angry, tumbling waters of a too swollen river. In times of sorrow, Cal's touches are slower and more hesitant, yet more needy and desperate. Cal's had just almost as little positive physical contact as Niko and in times of sorrow it shows. Then his touches are like the lappings of river water against it's banks. Hesitant in ways, and ever inevitable. Yet no matter when, Cal's touches are home, even in anger or sorrow or fear. They are comfort and home and always have been, always will be.


End file.
